Tracking Conanicus:

Osprey is flying south

Conanicus, Jamestown’s juvenile osprey from Marsh Meadows that was fitted with a satellite tracking device, has left the island and is heading south.

You can follow his travels at www.conanicutraptors.com. Click on Osprey Tracking>2005 Migration>Conanicus. You can click through the maps. Following some technical difficulties the local site is now active.

Here is a summary of his travels since leaving Jamestown:

Sept. 19: Conanicus has finally cut the apron strings and is on his way south. Around midday on the 17th he moved 78 miles west to Bridgeport, Conn. On the 18th, he really got going, moving 156 miles down to a point just west of Atlantic City, N.J., where he spent the night. The osprey-ometer now reads 234 miles. He’s probably finished less than 10 percent of his migration.

Sept. 20: Conanicus continues to push south. On the 19th he made another move 129 miles under the cover of radio silence, so we don’t know the timing of his trip, but he surely passed over Cape May, and crossed Delaware Bay sometime during the day. The first fix for him on the 20th is a roost site, near Macedonia in the Virginia portion of the Delmarva peninsula. Around midday, he was moving south. The O s p r e y o m e t e r now reads 384 miles

Sept. 21: Conanicus is on a roll and has caught up with his fellow first-time migrant Homer, who is a bit west of the last location on this map. We don’t know when he crossed the Chesapeake, as our first location on the 21st is down in N.C., just south of Currituck, around midday.

Three hours later,

he had crossed

Albemarle Sound and was approaching Pamlico Sound. He settled down for the night near Swanquarter, N.C., on the shore of Pamlico Sound. He has now flown 538 miles.